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zoux posted:Started a DS9 rewatch, probably haven't seen it all the way through in 15 years and I'm struck by how confident and mature the show is from the jump. Easily the best pilot out of any of the series (though I do notice that every ST pilot seems to have the hero ship crew encountering a non-corporeal superbeing that interacts with the captain in a budget friendly construct of previously existing sets) and its deep into the politics of the region right away. Quark is more sinister in the pilot and also his nose is different. Quark did literally have the wrong nose in that episode, it was the one meant for Rom because his wasn't done yet. I do love the DS9 pilot, less for sheer entertainment value (it's good, not incredible) and more for all the risks they were willing to take. It's so different from what they do today. The main character we all love from the established series shows up, just for the new show's main character to get into a fairly unflattering confrontation with him. It's such a bold way to start off making it perfectly clear that this is not going to be more of the same, even though it is going to have a clear connection to the existing franchise. Of course, the rest of season 1 struggles a bit to break away from rejected TNG plots, but it's a pretty admirable effort nonetheless. For its part, I also look back fondly on how TNG struck an even more delicate balance between recalling TOS and breaking away from it. I guess part of it is just a different mindset back then, where it wasn't cool to just remake something.
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Mar 6, 2023 17:07
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zoux posted:Also Avery Brooks was only two years younger than Patrick Stewart was in Encounter at Farpoint, but he looks about 15 years younger. It's the hair. Brooks wasn't prematurely balding (even by male standards) while Stewart was. If you look at Stewart's laugh lines in the HD remaster, you can see he's much younger than you'd think he is at first glance.
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Mar 6, 2023 17:29
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It's a relief, because my expectation was that I was gonna have to slog through seasons 1 and 2 to get to the good stuff, but it starts off in mid-series form. I recently watched the first like five seasons of Voyager before I got bored and they do not start off on this kind of footing at all. I guess part of it is that DS9 is loaded with banger characters like Odo and Quark throwing down from day one. Everyone in Voyager is just so bland, and their attempts at exotic alien crewmembers are the worst of the franchise. Like Kira is way more "Maquis" toward Sisko in the first few episodes than Chakotay was through the whole run of Voyager. And he was right back "Go over my head again and I'll have your head" is so not a thing you'd expect the main commander in a ST series to say. Avery Brooks does make a lot of strange acting choices. When he's first put into the Nexu- uh the Wormhole Aliens Memory Machine and he does the hot sand thing, and he's explaining what's going on to "Jennifer" he lets out this Michael Jackson "WOOOOOO!" to cap it all off, and I'm not sure what he was going for. zoux fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 17:29
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brooks does make a couple of weird decisions wrt delivery. it gets much better later on, but he definitely has a distinctive cadence, kind of like shatner i remember complaining about that too when i first watched DS9, but it honestly i think it grows on you. it did for me anyway
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Mar 6, 2023 17:34
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Mar 6, 2023 17:37
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I think it's notable that Kate Mulgrew is the ONLY one of the five leading captains pre-revival to not have stage acting experience as a big part of her resume. Shatner and Stewart were Shakespearean, Brooks and Bakula did American theatre. Mulgrew went from school to soap operas, apparently. Not that Kate Mulgrew is a bad actress, but I do think it affects how she treats Star Trek's stage (the bridge) and its space, compared to the people used to banging out oratory on there.
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Mar 6, 2023 17:39
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Lol
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Mar 6, 2023 17:40
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Sir Lemming posted:It's so different from what they do today. The main character we all love from the established series shows up, just for the new show's main character to get into a fairly unflattering confrontation with him. It's such a bold way to start off making it perfectly clear that this is not going to be more of the same, even though it is going to have a clear connection to the existing franchise. It's also great as it also sort of says, oh if we have two great actors on an episode, yeah don't worry we know what to do with them.
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Mar 6, 2023 17:43
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My favourite Brooks delivery is when Dax tells him Odo got laid for the first time and he goes "a woman? That's niiiceee" in the weirdest loving tone, it's hilarious. Also that episode proudced this trading card which is also fantastic.
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Mar 6, 2023 17:48
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DS9 probably has the best ensemble cast out of them all i think, and that's including guest stars — it's easy to forget, but weyoun, rom, nog, garak, damar, martok, dukat, winn, keiko etc. all aren't main cast, but they're certainly main characters the whole thing is just really well done, and if anyone is on the fence about watching it because of the core concept i implore you to give it a shot
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Mar 6, 2023 17:59
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My favorite Brooks-ism isn’t even a line. It’s this little-kid-tantrum face he pulls when Kai Winn(?) walks into Ops in an early episode.
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Mar 6, 2023 18:04
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Beeftweeter posted:DS9 probably has the best ensemble cast out of them all i think, and that's including guest stars. It was really great at just pulling interesting/fun characters seemingly out of no where, and then actually following through and having them do stuff. The only exception was male Bajoran. There was like one I remember that had some sort of personality and all the rest were just the blandest of cardboard. At least Kiria and Winn were awesome and showed that interesting Bajorans existed.
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Mar 6, 2023 18:08
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Ben Sisko really comes across as a man who has no idea how to handle himself with anything close to resembling normal polite behaviour but I'll be damned if I wouldn't follow him to hell and back.
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Mar 6, 2023 18:09
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zoux posted:Also it is insane to me that they didn't take 15 minutes to debark all the civilian spouses and children before they sent 100 year old Reliant class ships to fight the Borg at Wolf 359 Yeah, it is, but if you need to rationalise it's possible that the Saratoga was in interstellar space and couldn't have diverted to a habitable star system and still gotten there in time. It was a desperation fleet. HD DAD posted:My favorite Brooks-ism isn’t even a line. It’s this little-kid-tantrum face he pulls when Kai Winn(?) walks into Ops in an early episode. Sisko has some great goofy expressions, especially early in the show.
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Mar 6, 2023 18:13
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MikeJF posted:Sisko has some great goofy expressions, especially early in the show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmmSUr6fCrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjvYiSDJujA
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Mar 6, 2023 18:16
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Quick question, how many folks here like the "All Good Things" version of the enterprise D? It always seemed to me to be a 90's XTREME version of the enterprise. "You like your enterprise? Think it's fast now? Well now it's got THREE nacelles! Hell yeah that means faster somehow?" IMO it was a lazy design where they just glued a spare part to an existing model and called it a day. However I see sometimes a ton of trekkers love the design.
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Mar 6, 2023 18:24
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13 yo me was like "Fuuuuuck yes"
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Mar 6, 2023 18:26
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dr_rat posted:The only exception was male Bajoran. There was like one I remember that had some sort of personality and all the rest were just the blandest of cardboard. . That's mostly Bariel. Most of the rest of the Bajoram male characters were ok. The big problem was that they weren't main cast or recurring characters , so they were very one note because there was no time to develop the characters. If Wymn had just been there for one episode, you probably wouldn't have liked her as well
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Mar 6, 2023 18:28
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zoux posted:13 yo me was like "Fuuuuuck yes" Same but 13 year olds are idiots
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Mar 6, 2023 18:28
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MikeJF posted:Yeah, it is, but if you need to rationalise it's possible that the Saratoga was in interstellar space and couldn't have diverted to a habitable star system and still gotten there in time. It was a desperation fleet. Maybe it was supposed to be in some sort of support role like extra sensor coverage or relaying coms and was not intending to go into combat with the cube.
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Mar 6, 2023 18:42
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Croatoan posted:Quick question, how many folks here like the "All Good Things" version of the enterprise D? It always seemed to me to be a 90's XTREME version of the enterprise. "You like your enterprise? Think it's fast now? Well now it's got THREE nacelles! Hell yeah that means faster somehow?"
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Mar 6, 2023 18:58
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Epicurius posted:That's mostly Bariel. Most of the rest of the Bajoram male characters were ok. The big problem was that they weren't main cast or recurring characters , so they were very one note because there was no time to develop the characters. They should have stuck with Li Nalas from the three-parter at the start of season 2. the legendary hero Kira rescues from prison camp turns out to be just some guy who was trying his best and fortuitously gunned down a cardassian in the bath, then he gets given her job because of politics, then he takes a bullet for Sisko. It’s a pretty understated role but I wish they hadn’t killed him off. The actor was Richard Beymer who can absolutely kill it with the right material (Twin Peaks for example) and he makes Li vastly more entertaining than Bareil, Shakaar, whoever else I’m forgetting.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:10
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They seriously considered changing it to keep him around because of how good he ended up being, but ultimately decided the episodes needed the death as part of their story's conclusion. They also weren't sure if they'd be able to get the actor for a recurring role
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Mar 6, 2023 19:17
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Memory Alpha seems like it is on another tier from the rest of the fan wikis. I like to read the entries on episodes after I watch them, they have so much BTS stuff in them. e: what's the consensus episode for when Julian gets swapped out by an impostor, I wanted to keep an eye out for that stuff this time around zoux fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 19:20
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zoux posted:Memory Alpha seems like it is on another tier from the rest of the fan wikis. I like to read the entries on episodes after I watch them, they have so much BTS stuff in them.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:23
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Shakar is good in his first appearance before the writers decided to make him an ineffectual milquetoast when he started dating Kira because (???) and I always liked that rear end in a top hat guy on the moon in season 1. One armed resistance fighter seemed cool too but he got killed off in his second appearance which certainly hindered his characterisationzoux posted:Memory Alpha seems like it is on another tier from the rest of the fan wikis. I like to read the entries on episodes after I watch them, they have so much BTS stuff in them.  DS9 is especially well resourced, I'm not sure of that's because there's more fan impetus to get things on there or there's just more material to record but I like to think both No Dignity fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 19:24
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zoux posted:Memory Alpha seems like it is on another tier from the rest of the fan wikis. I like to read the entries on episodes after I watch them, they have so much BTS stuff in them. there's a notable drop in quality from "wikis that were fan projects in and of themselves which agreed to join wikia" (memory alpha) and "fan wikis created to have a wiki for that thing on wikia" (the infamous silent hill wiki) the tier above are the wikis that went "wow wikia fuckin blows let's branch the wiki and do something non-lovely with it" (wowpedia)
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Mar 6, 2023 19:24
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Memory Alpha is in part so detailed just because Star Trek being such a long and long and storied franchise and with such a dedicated fanbase, there's just been a lot more behind the scenes material and interview after interview with everyone involved and different commentaries released about everything over the years than just about any other show. If you ever get a chance, take a browse through the DS9 companion, it's a really amazing book, there's multi-page retrospectives across a bunch of people for every episode. That's why DS9 in particular has so much info. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Mar 6, 2023 |
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Mar 6, 2023 19:25
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Arivia posted:there's a notable drop in quality from "wikis that were fan projects in and of themselves which agreed to join wikia" (memory alpha) and "fan wikis created to have a wiki for that thing on wikia" (the infamous silent hill wiki)
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Mar 6, 2023 19:26
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Nessus posted:The top tier is the Transformers Wiki. why do robots have GENDER
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Mar 6, 2023 19:26
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Arivia posted:why do robots have GENDER Why wouldn't they
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Mar 6, 2023 19:27
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjvYiSDJujA I chuckle a little when Sisko gets angry because Brooks has such a weird inflection when he's upset. It's very endearing. The difference between captains: I think I'd rather Sisko yell in my face than Picard be so disappointed in something I did that he turns away from looking at me in his Ready Room. That would be pretty devastating without him even raising his voice or lowering his cup of tea. Earl grey. Hot. There's a lot that can be said (and I'm sure has been said) about Picard/Sisko and the difference between hard and soft power.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:29
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Arivia posted:the tier above are the wikis that went "wow wikia fuckin blows let's branch the wiki and do something non-lovely with it" (wowpedia) Unfortunately branching is really difficult: fandom.com has slowly introduced their own incompatible proprietary styles and extensions that pages will be designed for to make it really hard to transition to other wiki projects. But more than that, if you try to transition off, they won't accept a shutdown. They'll boot the admin accounts and open it right back up, delete any notices of redirect, and restore any removed pages or material. And google will still be treating the old one as the highest rank result, so lots of people will just end up going to the old one, even as its quality slowly decays due to all the top maintainers being gone. Meanwhile the new site will languish because most people aren't getting directed there. You can see the effect with a bunch of wikis where a Google search just leads to multiple near-identical pages, one on fandom and one not. Fandom.com really are a cancer on the internet.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:32
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zoux posted:e: what's the consensus episode for when Julian gets swapped out by an impostor, I wanted to keep an eye out for that stuff this time around It would be after Things Past, since a changeling being in a mini-Great Link would probably be noticed by Odo, and likely before Rapture, since Bashir was in his old uniform when they found him in the internment camp.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:33
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i feel like even if i accidentally blew up a planet or something picard would admonish me in a big grand speech that's ultimately very instructive, i'd walk away for it wiser. if i burned sisko's french fries he might fall to his knees and scream. i'd go with picard. unless im bajoran. then i aint trustin that motherfucker on poo poo.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:37
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Of course, Siddig had no idea and the writers didn't really plan it in advance either, so it's probably best not to try to pinpoint it. It's a fun reveal, but you can't really do the Sixth Sense thing with it.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:41
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I remember when Quark finds him reading porn and he's like "no, it's for an investigation, to investigate the criminal mind".
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Mar 6, 2023 19:46
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That DICK! posted:i feel like even if i accidentally blew up a planet or something picard would admonish me in a big grand speech that's ultimately very instructive, i'd walk away for it wiser. if i burned sisko's french fries he might fall to his knees and scream. i'd go with picard. "DO you KNOW how to properly COOK fries, mister?" I can almost hear Sisko ranting in ops about it.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:46
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That DICK! posted:i feel like even if i accidentally blew up a planet or something picard would admonish me in a big grand speech that's ultimately very instructive, i'd walk away for it wiser. if i burned sisko's french fries he might fall to his knees and scream. i'd go with picard.
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Mar 6, 2023 19:47
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Of course when you think about it further, you could say it was before Let He Who is Without Sin, and that changeling Bashir deliberately split up with Leeta so that she wouldn’t get suspicious…
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Mar 6, 2023 19:48
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